REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OPENING OF THE NEW CENTRE OF THE ATHY COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE OPENING OF THE NEW CENTRE OF THE ATHY COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROJECT ATHY, CO. KILDARE
It is my great pleasure to be here with you today to open Athy Community Development Project’s new centre. I would like to thank Colette Byrne-Fallon, the Project Co-ordinator, for her words of welcome and her kind invitation.
The increasing prosperity which Ireland has experienced in recent years gives us great pride and growing hope that this country can and will deliver to the next generation real equality of opportunity. There is a distance still to travel for, in some ways, the gap between rich and poor can appear to be increasing – as those who are doing well seem to accelerate further ahead and those whose boats are beached remain static, bogged down in unemployment, poverty, discrimination, disadvantage and exclusion, made all the harder to bear by the growing self-confidence and success all around them.
We can only judge ourselves to be a success as a nation if all members of our society are enabled to participate as of right in every sphere – in employment, in social networks, in the decision-making process which determines their lives. That has to be our goal, the destination of all our energies. This generation is the closest to realising it. It won’t happen by accident. It can be made to happen by commitment.
Projects of this kind demonstrate that this is not just an empty aspiration. Real community development is not simply about improving people’s lives – although of course this is an important aspect. The key reason for the success of projects like this is that they give the people who need help, the skills, confidence and self-belief to help themselves. This means they are no longer the passive recipients of whatever assistance other people decide that they need – instead, they are given a voice with which they can speak for themselves.
Athy Community Development Project is a fine example of this. It shows that with a little money and a lot of love, dedication and hard work, it is possible to make a very real difference in the lives of people in the community. I have no doubt that this wonderful new centre will make a real and lasting difference to the work of the Project and to the lives of the people of Woodstock and Clonmullion. Athy is a town of great vibrancy and energy, a vibrancy that is reflected in your success in bringing this new centre to completion and in your determination to ensure that all the people of Athy are enabled to develop their gifts to the full, to contribute to the life of your community and to create the type of caring and inclusive society that we all aspire to.
If we are to realise this aspiration, it is especially important that young people, in particular, are given every support. It is therefore particularly appropriate that one of your main target groups is early school leavers and disadvantaged young people. There is a saying “Mol an Óige agus tiocfaidh sí” – praise the youth and it will blossom. Sadly, many of our young people do not receive the support and encouragement they need in order to thrive. I commend your efforts to redress that situation and I am sure those efforts will bear fruit a hundred fold in the future. Too many talents have been left undiscovered, too many lives lived inside the straitjackets of frustrated hopes not of their own making. No country can afford to waste the talent and giftedness of its people. Every model, every scrap of that talent and these gifts needs to be put at the service of building up firstly the human person, then family, community and country. When we talk of the marginalised it is important to realise that the centre is impoverished by their absence.
I am particularly delighted to see the close links that have been built up with the Traveller Community. If community development is to mean anything, it must mean that all members of the community are included, without “ifs, ands or buts”. It is only through bringing people together, respecting their differences but also recognising how much we all have in common, that barriers of suspicion and hostility can be broken down – and the wealth of talent released to grow organically without artificial impediments.
I would also like to wish you every success with the introductory course in Pre-School care that you are planning to set up in the new centre. I have no doubt that it will greatly assist employment in the area, not only by providing training for those interested in a career in childcare, but also by assisting women with children who wish to re-enter the workforce. The coming century must surely be the first to truly offer to women the fullest opportunities for self-expression and self-realisation. What a transformed world it will be when we are flying on both wings rather than on one wing as we are today.
I am both astonished and delighted at how much has been achieved already by the Community Development Project in Athy. Particular thanks and congratulations are due to the Chairperson, Kay Foley, the Project Co-ordinator, Colette Byrne-Fallon and, especially, to all of the volunteers who have got this project off the ground with such resounding success.
I am sure that this is just the beginning of many achievements for the Project, and I wish all of you the very best of success in the future.